I have not made efforts to stimulate meeting up, in fact I fought an
annoying battle with UK MUG HQ to be permitted not to. So, just to make
the position transparent:
1) I am very happy for the list to be the place where such a meeting(s)
is organised: there is no 'ban' on SMUG having face-to-face meetings.
2) I don't *encourage* it, in the sense that the list does not need to
become a place for endless discussion of venue etc.
3) UK MUG wanted all groups to have monthly meetings, with show-and-tell
and possibly talks by software developers (with the incentive of
discounts etc). In order to do this, we would have to have a membership
fee, probably modest but a fee.
I refused (in fact I said I would resign if this was forced on me)
because the time spent, and the distortion produced, by having fees
(collecting, keeping records, handling complaints, troubleshooting
paypal, having an 'appeal' process for late payments blah blah) was
going to put the time needed through the roof for a group that didn't
actually show much inclination for meeting up and even less for paying
annually for something that only needed paying for if we had meetings
(you see the circle?).
Now, as a refugee from what was a completely insane list for London MUG,
I know that you can have really good monthly meetings (they did) and a
list that makes you want to remove people's eyeballs and stuff them in
their mouths -- and presumably *vice versa* so maybe meeting in person
would actually be terrible.
So if there is interest in direct response to someone saying 'shall we
meet up?' I'm fine with that. If anyone wants
1) organised regular meetings
2) talks by SMUG members and/or outsiders/developers
I'm fine with that but *they* have to organise it and as admin, anything
that involves commercial endorsement, organising discounts (and checking
membership lists, which means collecting fees etc) is *not* going to
happen (unless someone else wants to be admin, which I'm perfectly open
to).
I actually think the best thing to do is start by saying "I will be at X
pub/location wearing a faded BBEdit t-shirt[footnote 1] (or similar) at
X time on X day. I'd love people to drop in." Then if a critical mass
forms over time, it can become a regular thing.
Alternatively, if someone wants to organise a very silly event like
'SMUG goes to the seaside' or a Xmas dinner, then that might be fun.
[1] I can probably provide a faded BBEdit t-shirt if I look hard enough
in my cupboard. I met Rich Siegel once…("I'm not worthy")
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